Thursday, June 24, 2010

Leaf Shape Washes

Marcia asked that I try more washes with shapes other than boxes and try washing from very light to strong color. So here's a real mix with some outside the box play time as well.

That funky looking viridian maple? A mistake by waiting too long to come around the leaf let the wash dry enough that the second pass didn't blend. Rather than try to let subsequent washes cover it up, I decided to leverage the mistake and push it through.

Drying time is seriously affected when the air conditioner's running--low humidity sucks the moisture off the paper with a vengeance.

And that's it for wash week. I have a journal entry to knock out and then it's time to plow into Week 3.


4 comments:

  1. Great textures emerging from the different wash techniques. Did you trace round collected leaves for the shapes?

    Lovely 'ghost' leaves in the middle -- I almost missed the one under the rose and ultramarine one.

    How did you do the veining on the middle siennaish and ultramarinish one?

    Love the texture on the brown burry one near the bottom.

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  2. Yes, I loosely traced a few picking from around the yard. Marcia asked how light I could reach so there are a couple of rather ghostly leaves. :-) (The scan is a wee bit on the light side.)

    The veining was ultramarine dropped into still damp burnt sienna.

    I love that earthy brown, the Cyprus Burnt Umber from Rublev. Rich and chunky.

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  3. Oh, those earthy browns! Yes, they are delicious.

    The veining is impressive: just the right degree of confident crookedness, very natural looking.

    Looking forward to some more of the exercises described in your latest post.

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  4. Well, we are going to become quite earthy around here in a few weeks. (See Saturday post.)

    We students are being coached to go easy on veining, that we don't have to try to get them all. Less is more.

    I'm taking a slow start on the dry brush. Today I collected various grasses in seed--so delicate and seemingly good candidates for dry brush. I'm just a bit lazy about getting started...

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